Archive for the Category ◊ Canada ◊

17 May 2009 Burlington Waterfront
 |  Category: Canada, The Great Outdoors  | 2 Comments

Burlington waterfront

After I dropped off Natalia at the airport, I decided it was too nice a day to drive straight home. We’d eaten brunch outside at the Grenadier Cafe in High Park in the afternoon because I was on a mission to enjoy the sunshine outdoors instead of in front of my computer (even though there’s work to do!). Once I was outside, I wanted to continue the mission by finally getting my lazy weekend carcass to the waterfront in Burlington. Have car, will travel… Since shooting the Hamilton Lift Bridge and harbour last August, I had been meaning to make a proper visit to Burlington’s shore. It’s taken nine months, but I finally did it.

The Waterfront at Downtown Burlington

The waterfront area is undergoing extensive infrastructure renewal and there’s no beach, but what it does have is a long stretch of park land, a snazzy-looking building called Discovery Landing at the west end, and the Royal Canadian Naval Ships Memorial Monument at the east end. (Looks like I missed the opening of the reflecting pond by just one week!)

Burl-Oak Naval Veterans

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More photos from the Burlington waterfront can be viewed as [thumbnails] or a [slideshow] or in the Pictobrowser after the jump: (more…)

06 May 2009 Rural Scenes: Prince Edward County
 |  Category: Canada  | 2 Comments

through the fence

I can’t believe a week and a half has passed since I shot these photos, but the calendar doesn’t lie. I wanted to go to Montreal on the Friday, but we stayed in the city that night instead and pushed off on Saturday, heading eastward with no fixed itinerary except I had to return to Toronto on Sunday night and the furthest we’d probably drive would be Ottawa, where Lachlan’s friends lived and who were due to return from Scotland over the weekend. I had a look at the map and decided we would go slow, leave the 401, and explore Prince Edward County.

I had to laugh, because 17 years ago we also drove very slowly through southeastern Australia, taking two whole weeks to travel what would be 880kms along major highway — a single day’s drive. But we didn’t take the major highways then, and I decided we weren’t going to take them now.

We passed by many farms, but Lachlan was surprised to see virtually no-one in the fields. When I spotted cows (yes, cow-spotting is the new pastime these days!) I stopped the car so he could get a closer look at the breeds. I can’t even distinguish dog breeds, let alone cow breeds, so I was content to drive and take photos. In Australia, Lachlan did all the driving and mocked my navigational skills (granted, they were really lacking; I’m much better at it now!), but this time it was my turn to drive and mock his pronunciation of Canadian places. Vive le road trip!

Prince Edward County

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28 Apr 2009 A Few Pictures From Picton
 |  Category: Canada  | Leave a Comment

After more than a week of cameraphone photos, I am ready for some proper ones, aren’t you? I must be ‘at large’ again shortly, but here are a few from our weekend in Prince Edward County, which was cut rather short (for me) because I had to drive back to Toronto by myself on Sunday night after dinner to make an appointment downtown yesterday. Maybe this weekend I’ll get some time to upload more photos from the past week. For now, I leave you with scenes from the county’s main town, Picton, which calls itself Loyalist:

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08 Aug 2008 “Show Some Leg!”
 |  Category: Canada, Raconteurism  | 3 Comments

"Show some leg!"

On Saturday after leaving the funeral reception, Lac Saint-Jean, and taking some last photos of the valley from the road, I told Georges I was driving and he had to hitch hike back to Quebec City. He stood there with his thumb out and I told him NOBODY would pick him up unless he made a bit more effort.

"C’mon," I yelled. "Show some leg!"

So he did!

(I think his mouth is full of cherries here. He beat his own record of holding 62 pits in his mouth at one time — I counted 67 that he spit out one by one while driving. If you see a sudden growth of cherry trees by the side of Highway 175, you’ll know why.)

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05 Aug 2008 Take My Picture!
 |  Category: Canada, Photography  | One Comment

I've never met anyone who WANTED to have her picture taken so much

I don’t think I have ever met anyone who WANTED to have her picture taken so much.

Georges and I were taking pictures by Lac-Saint-Jean on Saturday when a speedboat and a seadoo pulled up to the dock. A little dog ran onto the pier first, and when Georges went to take its picture, this woman behind the dog spotted George’s big telephoto lens (300mm), ran towards us, leaped up on this picnic table and started posing. Completely unprompted, and we weren’t even taking her photo to begin with.

Stunned, Georges started shooting and this went on until it was time for us to go. Afterwards, he turned to me in the car and said, "I have never seen anything like that before." He was so surprised he hadn’t set his camera properly and said next time he’d be more prepared.

Prepared! I don’t know if one could be — this woman was like a firecracker at the company picnic!

I hope Georges posts his photos, because I had the wrong lens for this and took only a few. Georges, on the other hand, has some great shots and some, er, interesting ones in the mix, too, that will likely never make it to the internet.

04 Aug 2008 Lac-Saint-Jean
 |  Category: Canada  | One Comment

proof that the sun actually did appear over the weekend

Here’s some proof that the sun actually did make a brief appearance over the weekend, but over the Lac-Saint-Jean region of Quebec.

The photo above was taken by Georges, with my camera. The other photos are by me.

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03 Aug 2008 Parc des chutes de la Chaudière
 |  Category: Canada, Videoclips  | Leave a Comment

Parc des Chutes-de-la-Chaudière

Charny, Quebec (south of Quebec City)

I visited these falls earlier today, although it was not nearly as sunny as in the video below (shot by someone else). The spray made for an interesting natural glow to the photos, though, as did the sun trying desperately to pierce through the grey clouds.

The weather’s been distinctly non-summery here, but I’ve been enjoying myself immensely, nonetheless.

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03 Aug 2008 Chateau Frontenac
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Chateau Frontenac

I shot this photo last night in rather blustery conditions (pelting rain and driving wind), but Georges brought his tripod and patiently waited for me to set up my camera, take some test shots, and decide when to call it quits. I called it quits after I saw this version, which is better viewed larger: View Larger On Black

Not bad, but as Georges says, my kit lens (18-55mm, the widest angle I have) is producing barrel distortion and there is some blurriness, too. True! But I didn’t have a wider lens, we were both getting soaked, and I think under the circumstances, this photo is not bad… Georges is a tough crowd! (But I think I might have convinced him that my Pentax K100D is a decent camera compared with his Canon Rebel XTi. Take that, Georges!)

I wondered while packing for this trip if it was too distracting and antisocial to bring along my computer, but Georges and I just spent the last two hours recalibrating his Apple computer display, rejigging his application preferences, and discussing geeky stuff, so it was worthwhile to bring it after all! Yay for Mac users!

03 Aug 2008 The Funeral Crasher
 |  Category: Canada, Videoclips  | Leave a Comment

Unsurprisingly, I only have the energy to post this video before I go pass out. It’s after 1am and we arrived near midnight from a day that began at 5:30am to make the drive two hours north of Quebec City, where I did something new by crashing a funeral in a rural town.

Yikes!

Well, not the actual funeral (for whom the bells toll) but the reception.

Er, but don’t the bells sound nice?

Photos and stories later, after I recharge my batteries.

01 Aug 2008 At Large In Quebec
 |  Category: Canada, Food + Drink, cameraphone  | 3 Comments

I’m writing this in recovery mode from the wonderful dinner you see here (and more, consumed but unpictured), prepared for me by my host in Quebec City. It is my first visit here and I rolled up at dinnertime from a long drive that started in Toronto this morning. Look what I was greeted with!

spoiled in Quebec City (vegetarians, look away!)

I had two passengers with me from Toronto to Montreal, people who each responded to my ad in Craigslist for a shared ride east. There was another person who was a tentative but didn’t come because he SLEPT IN* and I said we weren’t going to wait for him. But the three of us who did travel had a quick five-hour drive to Montreal thanks to music and plenty of easyflowing conversation. I dropped them off downtown and found my way to the Pont Jacques-Cartier to continue to Quebec City.

Pont Jacques-Cartier

Strangely, THIS bridge photo was the only one of the batch I uploaded from my cameraphone via email that was posted to Flickr. I have several others, but I’m not reposting them now in case they’re all delayed in a data bottleneck and get released in the middle of the night, making me eat my words… really, I can’t eat my words, in fact, I can’t eat anything else — did you see my dinner plate? I’m going to crash and burn now, because Georges warned me it is going to be A VERY EARLY MORNING. We’re heading up north!

* There’s more to this story, it’s funnier in person. Remind me to tell you later!